


Morning Child

by Barkour



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trick with children is just to love them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morning Child

**Author's Note:**

> Something begun in 2011 that I finally got around to finishing up (if only a little). This is in the same loose continuity of a couple old stories of mine, [Out of Consideration for Paisley](http://archiveofourown.org/works/211747) and [Hand to Hold](http://archiveofourown.org/works/212614), and a third story by Rawles, [The Reluctant God-Sitter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/252683). You don't need to read any of those stories to read this.

Sif slipped into the kitchen at a quarter past the sixth hour, as the clock set high in the ceiling called the time: a single chime to mark the quarter. As Loki was occupied with Ullr, who had managed to mash all the uamg fruit up between his fingers and into his face, he didn't look up. He slung an arm about Ullr's back to steady him and said, "Good morning."

In passing, she ran her fingers over Loki's shoulder. She said, "Good morning to you," very breezily. She could afford to. She wasn't the one trying to dig fruit out of Ullr's eyes. "And how are my two boys doing?"

"Oh, we're very well, thank you," said Loki. He tried for Ullr's nose. A length of purple fruit, smashed to a chunky paste, showed in the right nostril.

"No!" said Ullr. "Stop!" 

He made to pull away. So small and lithe, he nearly managed it, too. Loki threw both his arms about Ullr and hauled him back against his chest. Like an animal in a trap, Ullr hissed and kicked. What they needed, Loki thought, was a leash.

"Be still," said Loki, all soft vowels and soothing bell-like tones, not that Ullr noticed. "It won't hurt you. You have my promise."

"Does too hurt," Ullr protested. "Get your finger out my nose!"

"It isn't even in your nose," said Loki. He showed Ullr his fingers. Ullr squinted at them. So much more clever than Thor's children, and younger, too, but he hadn't got the hang of numbers yet.

"Let your father put his finger in your nose," said Sif from the other end of the kitchen.

"No-o-o," Ullr cried. 

Panic came over him. Loki's fingers loomed before him. Too late, Loki thought to pull his hand back. Ullr wriggled violently and, with no other options, shoved his fruit-stained face directly into his father's chest. The faint, wet sensation of mushy fruit crept through Loki's shirt. Loki dropped his hand.

" _Thank_ you," he said. "Whatever would I have done without your expert assistance."

Sif looked up from the selection of cold cuts in the freezer. "That shirt's already a mess," she said comfortingly.

"I was fashionable once," he said. "I wore a different outfit every day. No one cut a finer figure than I."

"At least try for humility," said Sif.

"It's no loss for you," said Loki. "You were never fashionable."

"Father," Ullr whispered. The syllables abbreviated on his tongue. "Your shirt got dirty."

"Oh," said Loki. "What does it matter? I never cared for it anyway." 

He patted Ullr twice on the back. Ullr, out of great concern for his father's cleanliness, wrapped his small arms about Loki's throat, stuck his grubby hands on Loki's back, and rubbed his face across Loki's collar.

"Sorry," said Ullr, who was given to sudden melancholy.

"You mustn't blame yourself," said Loki. "After all, it's only a shirt."

Sif came over with a plate, bearing cold slices of ham and a little thing of grapes turned over upon them. She set the plate on the table and crouched beside Loki.

"You look awful," she said. "Let me have him."

"It's your turn to feed him tomorrow," said Loki, rocking Ullr. "Wait your turn, same as I do."

"I'm not going to steal him away," said Sif, amused. "I only thought you might need to wash off."

Loki looked down. Ullr sighed wetly into Loki's shirt. A pale violet stain spread out across his tunic: Ullr's gift to him. There was uamg fruit in Ullr's hair. Loki didn't know how it had got there.

"You'll want an apron," said Loki.

Sif snorted. "Please. As if snot's the worst thing I've ever had on my front."

There were a few things Loki could have said about that. Perhaps not, he decided. Ullr had got into the habit of parroting things Sif and Loki said to each other, and he'd a talent for figuring out what precisely was the most shockingly inappropriate thing to repeat. Like father, like son, Loki thought; then he put the thought as far from him as he could.

"Come here," said Sif to Ullr, "and let me clean your face."

Ullr clung more tightly to Loki, who made a choking sound and bowed to Ullr. 

"Don't want to," Ullr muttered.

"You must," said Sif. "He's turning colors."

Loki patted Ullr’s back again then tried, sliding his hand up the nearest arm, to loosen his son’s grip around his throat. So far as military campaigns went, he’d known greater successes. Ullr had something of the clinging vine in him.

"Perhaps,” said Loki carefully, “ you should listen to your mother. She has on occasion not been wrong, on a variety of subjects.”

“I see you’re feeling generous today,” muttered Sif.

Ullr lifted his head. His arms remained wound as far about Loki's neck as they could go. He squinted at Sif. His round, blue cheek had creased on Loki's shirt.

"No fingers," he said.

"No fingers," Sif agreed. 

She showed him her hands, all her fingers bent to her palms. Ullr's arms loosened fractionally. Loki had settled his hand again between Ullr's shoulders. When Ullr pushed away from him and darted to Sif, Loki's hand hung a moment then dropped. His neck was warm where Ullr had touched it. 

Sif caught Ullr and swung him up on her hip. She rose. Loki, too, rose. He brushed at his shirt. Jam stuck to his fingers. He grimaced.

"Do you remember when Ullr was just a babe?" Sif asked. "You always got up to hold him when he was crying."

Loki remembered. "He's my son, too," she'd said one night. Shouted it, rather. They'd been rough days then. Rougher nights.

She wasn't often given to nostalgia. Like Loki, she preferred to carry it within. He looked at her. Sif was looking down her nose at Ullr. Her hair wisped at her throat. Her throat: that smooth column with its familiar contours. She smiled at Ullr. Her cheeks, pale, were creased, too. Strands of hair stuck to her jaw.

"You don't remember," Sif told Ullr.

"I remember," he said.

“Do you?” Sif raised her brow. It was the sort of look she’d used to great effect in battle, striking fear into the hearts of her foes, et cetera.

Ullr smiled and stuck his hand out as if to show her, and he said again, “I remember!” Then, happily, he dropped his head on her shoulder and just went on smiling. His eyes lidded. 

"You've grown your hair," said Loki.

Sif turned that arch look on him. "You hadn't noticed?" 

"It snuck up on me," he said, looking at her looking at him. 

"I like your hair," said Ullr.

He reached for it where the ends turned up at her nape. Sif intercepted his jammy hand. Bringing it to her mouth, she kissed the back of his wrist. Ullr squirmed.

"Is there something I should know about?" asked Loki.

"Not everything has especial meaning," said Sif. "But now that this one's old enough to know better than to yank my hair--" She squeezed Ullr's hand.

Too loudly, Ullr said, "I wasn't gonna."

"You mustn't tell lies," said Loki absently. The look Sif threw him at _that_ \-- He nearly took the challenge. 

Instead he reached out and touched his finger to her dark, dark hair, almost long enough to tangle now. Sleep rumpled the corners of her eyes, her mouth. A strand of hair had caught on her lip. Her brow arched higher. Her mouth began to curve, just so at the corners.

"You look lovely," he said, "and more than half wild."

"Silvertongue," she said. Then she flicked his finger away. " _Shameless_ silvertongue, to speak of wildness when you look as if you fell into a pool of jam."

"At least I have remembered to brush my hair," said Loki.

"It goes well with the jam," said Sif. “Go find a wet cloth.”

“If my lady so commands,” said Loki with more sugar than the joke warranted; but he lingered in that warm little kitchen with Sif, and with Ullr, who had taken to examining his fingers and the mashed up fruit between them. The morning light crept in through the vast windows encircling the whole of the place, and this dawn caught in Sif’s dark hair and at Ullr’s nape.

“What?” asked Sif, in a low, suspicious laugh. She dodged Ullr’s hand as he made to wipe it on her face. She bent to kiss Ullr’s hand again. When he smiled, a bit of Sif showed in his face; a bit of Loki showed, too.

“I’ll cut it all off again if it’ll stop you staring.”

“Oh, not on my account,” said Loki, and he leaned forward to collect a kiss of his own. Sif smiled lean and slow, and her lips pursed against his. He breathed out; he let his eyes close. Morning, all over again. Perhaps there was something to be said for predictability.

"I'm hungry," said Ullr, who wore his breakfast in his hair.

“Fancy that,” murmured Loki, and Sif pushed him away.

“Let your father get a cloth to clean your face,” she said, “and we’ll try again till you get it right.”


End file.
